All Parties shall, at all times, receive equal treatment and application of any terms of service, conditions, rules, and codes of conduct, except when the Party being treated unequally has contractually agreed, through express, written, informed consent, to unequal treatment.

This one might piss people off a little. First, the part people will like. As I mentioned in Digitalist Number 6, if End User A says “I hate End User B” and gets punished for it, then End User B should also be punished for saying “I hate End User A” in the event they say it. Rules should not be selectively applied based on politics. If an action breaks the rules then the appropriate penalties should be applied to the Party breaking the rules. That is the way it is.

Here’s the part that will piss people off. If, for example, Netflix wants to pay extra to reach End Users with priority over YouTube, and they have an agreement with the ISP to do so, then that should be allowed. Chances they’re paying for that special treatment. Now that doesn’t mean ISPs should charge more to deliver your content at reasonable speeds, or throttle you for not paying (that would violate Guarantee VIII). Not to mention Platforms like Netflix have spent millions or even billions of dollars investing in infrastructure to basically become their own ISP, so the only work your ISP does to deliver the content to you is from the node to your house. Prohibiting fast lanes prohibits corporations from creating their own fast lane at their own expense, and that could be used to prevent a competitor ISP from creating their own universal fast lane (or even starting their own company) if they wanted to.

Allowing contractual preferential treatment also means Platforms can charge money to feature a video higher on a recommended page (for example), although it should be noted that the Platform should disclose if it is a paid promotion. The FTC does require that in most cases.

No Party shall, at any time, through fraud, deception, dishonesty, willful negligence, or anti-competitive practice, prevent any other Party from generating revenue on a Platform, or via usage of an Internet Service Provider.

This is to cover multiple areas. First is the obvious violations of the monopoly and antitrust laws that many countries have (but often don’t properly enforce). Anticompetitive and antitrust behaviors damage the free market, are often fraud, and prevent accountability. Whether it’s buying competitors and then shutting them down or lobbying for unreasonable regulation that you know any current or future competitor will be unable to cope with, this is clear undue interference.

Another issue this covers is End Users contacting Platforms, ISPs, other End Users, or an End User’s real world contacts to lie about them in an attempt to damage their reputation and prevent them from doing business. A perfect example is people who try to get conventions to uninvite people like Sargon of Akkad with claims of harassment, sexism, racism, etc., even though they are demonstrably false.

This guarantee has been updated for more accurate wording and clarity at the suggestion of Firm Word.

Any Party that does act in a manner which, can not be demonstrably proven, through due process, to infringe upon the rights of others, or to have caused Damages or Harm, shall not be prevented from generating revenue on a Platform, or via usage of an Internet Service Provider.

This is to protect all Parties from being attacked for wrong think. As mentioned in Digitalist Number 8 and Digitalist Number 9, a lot of End Users and even Platforms get shut down, defunded and threatened simply for having or allowing the expression of differing opinions, even when those opinions break no laws. Add to that the mentality that End Users who have differing opinions often have to fear their real world employers contacted and risk getting fired for online activity completely unrelated to their job, and you can see that this Guarantee is needed.

This allows you to make money from your wrong-think directly or at least not have to worry about your employer firing you for it. As long as you haven’t committed any Damages or Harm or infringed on someone else’s rights.

This guarantee has been updated for more accurate wording and clarity at the suggestion of Firm Word.

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